Washington (CNN)The differences between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on display Monday when the two offered dramatically divergent takes on a nuclear deal with Iran -- even as Netanyahu struck a conciliatory tone during his visit to Washington.

Obama told Reuters that a deal with Iran to freeze its nuclear activity for at least 10 years, with verification measures, would be "far more effective in controlling their nuclear program than any military action we could take, any military action Israel could take and far more effective than sanctions will be."

He also said Netanyahu has been wrong before -- pointing to the 2013 interim deal with Iran.

"Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true," Obama said. "It has turned out that in fact, during this period we've seen Iran not advance its program. In many ways, it's rolled back elements of its program."

Netanyahu, meanwhile, reaffirmed that the U.S.-Israeli relationship remains strong and, despite controversy surrounding his Tuesday address to Congress, said the two nations "will weather this current disagreement."

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"Our friendship will weather the current disagreement as well, to grow even stronger in the future — because we share the same dreams...because the values that unite us are much stronger than the differences that divide us," he said in his address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference, drawing enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Polling has shown Americans disapprove of House Speaker John Boehner's move to invite Netanyahu to speak to Congress without notifying the White House. That, and the timing of the speech so close to the Israeli election, has critics accusing Boehner and Netanyahu of politicizing the issue of Iranian nuclear talks, and a growing number of Democrats are planning to boycott what they see as an attack on the president.

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But in his address to AIPAC, the prime minister refuted those critics, insisting that his Tuesday speech is "not intended to inject Israel into the American partisan debate," and reaffirming his support for Obama.

"My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to Obama or the esteemed office that he holds—I have great respect for both," he said.

Netanyahu instead framed his Tuesday address as part of a "moral obligation" to sound the alarm on Iran, which he warned has "vowed to annihilate Israel, and if develops nuclear weapons, it can achieve that goal."

"As prime minister of Israel, I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these threats while there is time to avert them," he said.

While he'll face a more skeptical audience on Tuesday, Netanyahu's speech Monday was punctuated with enthusiastic applause and multiple standing ovations from an auditorium packed with thousands of pro-Israel activists, business leaders and others in town for the annual AIPAC policy conference.

And while she sought to diffuse some of the tension between the two nations with a speech peppered with Hebrew and recollections of her personal experiences with Israel, she offered a direct refutation to the goal of many in the room to deny Iran nuclear capabilities entirely.

She received her biggest applause of the night after mentioning the possibility of having Iran "forego its domestic enrichment capacity entirely," but immediately shot the crowd down.

"But as desirable as that would be — it is neither realistic or achievable," she said.

"The plain fact is no one can make Iran unlearn the scientific and nuclear expertise it already possesses," Rice added, and cautioned that it wasn't a "viable negotiating position" to attempt to block Iran from using its nuclear capacity for domestic energy reasons.

But she emphasized that the U.S.' and Israel's goals and security concerns are the same, and sought to reassure the pro-Israel crowd that the White House had Israel's best interests in mind during the negotiations.

"We have Israel's back come hell or high water," she said.

Last week top White House officials warned the way it's been handled has damaged ties between the two nations. Obama has declined to meet with Netanyahu during his visit, and will not be attending the speech.

Netanyahu acknowledged during his Monday address that disagreements between the U.S. and Israel are "only natural from time to time," because there are "important differences" between the two nations.

He said that Israel exists in a far more dangerous region of the world, and while "America's the strongest power in the world, Israel is strong, but it's much more vulnerable."

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"We believe firmly that Israel's security and the U.S.- Israel partnership transcends politics. It always will," Power said. "This partnership should never be politicized and it cannot and will not be tarnished or broken."

Power insisted that the "bond between the United States and Israel is still a national commitment," and declared that relationship "should never be a partisan matter."

"We cannot and we will not lose sight of that," she said.

AIPAC activists will fan out across Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby legislators to support a bill slapping tougher sanctions on Iran and one subjecting any eventual deal to congressional approval.

Because of the increasingly tense atmosphere surrounding the speech, it risks backfiring on Netanyahu, and even some of his allies have expressed concerns that he may ultimately undermine his cause.

AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr acknowledged Sunday that "the way this speech has come about has created a great deal of upset among Democrats," but said the situation hasn't risen to the level of a crisis yet, and "frankly, it's up to us to not let it become a crisis.

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He said the speech would be "important," and added that "we hope and urge members of Congress to be there to hear what he has to say."

Congressional Republicans have broken with Obama, with Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, saying the United States should "not do this through appeasement."

"The biggest problem we have on the face of the planet is Iran getting a nuclear weapon," he said on CNN's "The Situation Room." "And we have to do anything and everything we can in our powers to make sure that won't happen."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in Jerusalem during a weekly Cabinet meeting in November 2013. Click through to see more photos from his life and career.

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Photos:Netanyahu's life in pictures

Netanyahu, right, sits with a friend at the entrance to his family home in Jerusalem on July 1, 1967. The Israeli prime minister was born October 21, 1949.

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Netanyahu, right, with a friend in the Judean Desert on May 1, 1968.

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Netanyahu serves in the Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit of the Israeli army, in 1971. He spent five years in the unit.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Zalman Shazar during a November 1972 ceremony honoring the Sayeret Matkal soldiers who freed hostages in a hijacking earlier that year.

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Netanyahu and his first wife, Miriam, in June 1980.

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Netanyahu and his daughter, Noa, in June 1980.

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Netanyahu speaks in July 1986 with Sorin Hershko, one of the Israeli soldiers wounded in Operation Entebbe. It was the 10th anniversary of Operation Entebbe, a dramatic rescue of Jewish hostages at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. Netanyahu's brother, Yonatan, was killed leading Operation Entebbe in 1976. Affected by his brother's death, Netanyahu organized two international conferences on ways to combat terrorism, one in 1979 and another in 1984.

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From 1984 to 1988, Netanyahu was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.

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Netanyahu talks to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on a stroll in New York's Central Park in November 1987.

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Netanyahu, as Israel's deputy foreign minister, goes through some papers as Government Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein recites morning prayers on a flight from New York to Washington in April 1989.

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Shamir speaks with Netanyahu at a Middle East peace conference in Madrid in October 1991.

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Netanyahu celebrates after being elected chairman of the right-wing Likud party on March 21, 1993.

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Netanyahu and former foreign minister David Levy sit in the Knesset during the vote for a new Israeli President on March 24, 1993.

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Netanyahu meets with King Hussein of Jordan, center, and Crown Prince Hassan in December 1994. It was Netanyahu's first visit to Jordan.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres before taking the office himself in June 1996.

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Netanyahu meets with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the first time on September 4, 1996, at an Israeli army base at the Erez Checkpoint in Gaza.

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Netanyahu meets with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington in February 1997.

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Netanyahu spends the day on the beach with his wife, Sara, and son Avner in Caesarea, Israel, on August 16, 1997.

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Actor Kirk Douglas holds the King David Award, presented to him by the Jerusalem Fund Aish Ha Torah during a dinner in Beverly Hills, California, on November 17, 1997. Douglas was honored for his inspirational commitment to Israel and the Jewish people and in recognition of his new book "Climbing the Mountain." Netanyahu is on the left. To the right is Rabbi Nachum Braverma, director of the Jerusalem Fund Aish Ha Torah.

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Netanyahu looks through binoculars during a tour of the West Bank with the Israeli Cabinet on December 28, 1997.

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Netanyahu and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan meet in Annan's office in New York on May 15, 1998.

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From left, Arafat, King Hussein, U.S. President Bill Clinton and Netanyahu sign an interim Middle East peace agreement in October 1998.

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Netanyahu thanks a crowd of supporters in Tel Aviv, Israel, at a Likud party meeting in May 1999. The outgoing Prime Minister announced that he was quitting the Knesset and stepping down as party leader 10 days after being defeated in elections.

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Netanyahu testifies before the U.S. House Government Reform Committee on September 20, 2001. The committee was conducting hearings on terrorism following the September 11 attacks.

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Netanyahu, as Israel's foreign minister, laughs with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the start of a Likud convention in Tel Aviv on November 12, 2002.

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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are seen at a polling station in Jerusalem on August 14, 2007. He was re-elected as head of the Likud party.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres in February 2009 after Netanyahu won backing from the Israeli parliament to become Prime Minister again. A close election between Netanyahu and rival Tzipi Livni had left the results unclear until the parliament's decision.

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From left, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II walk to the East Room of the White House to make statements on the Middle East peace process on September 1, 2010.

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Obama meets with Netanyahu at the White House in September 2010.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on as Abbas and Netanyahu shake hands in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on September 14, 2010, during a second round of Middle East peace talks.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomes Netanyahu to 10 Downing Street in London on May 4, 2011.

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Netanyahu address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on May 24, 2011. He said that he was prepared to make "painful compromises" for a peace settlement with the Palestinians, but he repeated that Israel will not accept a return to its pre-1967 boundaries.

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Netanyahu uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran's nuclear program while delivering an address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 27, 2012. Netanyahu exhorted the General Assembly to draw "a clear red line" to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

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Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman of the Likud-Beiteinu coalition party greet supporters as they arrive onstage on election night in January 2013. The Likud-Beiteinu won 31 seats in the Knesset.

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Netanyahu speaks at the U.N. General Assembly on October 1, 2013. He accused Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and described him as "a wolf in sheep's clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community."

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In December 2014, Netanyahu called for early elections as he fired two key ministers for opposing government policy.

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Netanyahu is greeted by members of US Congress as he arrives to speak in the House chamber in March 2015. He warned that a proposed agreement between world powers and Iran was "a bad deal" that would not stop Tehran from getting nuclear weapons -- but would rather pave its way to getting lots of them and leave the Jewish State in grave peril.

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Netanyahu and his family take a vacation in southern Israel in April 2015.

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Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel talk in Berlin in October 2015.

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Netanyahu speaks to the press in Tel Aviv, Israel, in June 2016. A day earlier, two attackers identified as Palestinians opened fire at a popular food and shopping complex near the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis and sending other patrons scrambling to safety.

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Netanyahu stands next to US President Barack Obama as they attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in September 2016.

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Netanyahu visits Moriah College in Sydney in February 2017. It was the first time an Israeli prime minister had visited Australia.

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Netanyahu speaks to US President Donald Trump in May 2017. Trump visited Israel and the West Bank during his first foreign trip as President.

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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, pose for a photo at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, in January 2018.

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Netanyahu, speaking at a security conference in Germany in February 2018, holds up what he claimed is a piece of an Iranian drone that was shot down after it flew over Israeli territory.